


I Wish You Were the One That Got Away

by Lucky107



Series: The Seventh Born [8]
Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Canon Dialogue, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 10:16:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14692128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucky107/pseuds/Lucky107
Summary: The man smiling up at her is definitely Cameron Burke, but something in his eyes is different.





	I Wish You Were the One That Got Away

“Hey, Rook.”

When their eyes meet, Roberta’s blood runs cold.

The man smiling up at her is definitely Cameron Burke, but something in his eyes is different. Listless. This isn’t the man she met in Missoula, but a Bliss-fueled imitation of her heart’s desire to see him again.

A _mockery_.

She wishes the circumstances could have been different, that she could have met him en route to anywhere that wasn’t here. _Let’s run away together_ , she would say, _back to Missoula and beyond_. But when she opens her mouth, she finds she’s lost her voice to the Bliss.

Cameron stands to take her hand—ever the gentleman—and help her into the wobbling rowboat. “C'mon, c'mon. It’s okay.”

He’s warm.

 _Alive_.

Roberta takes a shaking step forward, up and over, before she settles into her designated seat opposite him.

It’s a cozy fit for two and their knees bump with each sway of the boat. Each touch elicits a new burst of heat that reminds her Cameron is _real_. The Bliss may be altering her perception of reality, but this isn’t just some nightmare—it’s a waking dream.

“I know you’re here to take me back,” he begins, clearing the air. He rows them through the hazy green mist, seemingly aware of Roberta’s discomfort. “It’s okay: she knows. Everybody knows. You _think_ you’re doing the right thing. You _think_ I need to be rescued, but… I don’t. I don’t wanna go back. Ever.”

“That’s bullshit,” Roberta spits, blunt and with force. “You’ve got a promotion riding on this job, told me so yourself with every bit of excitement a child harbors for Christmas morning.”

As if the vulgarity of her outburst is lost on him, Cameron just smiles.

“Gonna leave your wife, you said.” She’s grasping at straws here, wracking her brain for any glimmer of sentimentality he shared with her between the sheets, but Missoula feels like a lifetime ago. “Said you were gonna start over, a clean slate. Live life just for youself—”

“But have you… have you ever stopped and looked at how _your_ life’s turned out?”

His words humble Roberta into a contemplative silence.

“I mean, what you’ve actually done with it. You know, we’re told we can be anything. Right? Uh… a famous singer, a hall of famer, a movie star. We’re all gonna be a success, Roberta. But no, that’s not… that’s just not true. We live mundane lives, just doing what someone else tells us to do. Day after day. Everybody _thinks_ they’re free, but c'mon. When’s the last time you did something that wasn’t required? _Demanded_?”

“For a start?” She stands then to grab the collar of his shirt. “When I fucked you, in spite of that ring on your finger. Nobody _demanded_ I do that.”

The boat sways uneasily beneath them.

“I know—you didn’t make the cut for the senior football team in high school. It _hurts_. Not everything in life is _fair_ , Cameron, but that doesn’t mean it’s worth throwing it all away, either.”

“Hear me out,” he pleads, securing one oar into a fastener so that he can place his hand over Roberta’s. His touch is gentle. “We don’t live _our_ lives. We live _theirs_. And we _think_ we have free will… but that is just a lie. An illusion. Oh, man, I am so _done_ with that. I am done with being the yes man. I am done with being the errand boy, and I am done with being the garbage collector.”

As if he’s caught her in some sort of trance, Cameron eases Roberta back into her seat with no resistance. The rowboat drifts lazily across their endless puddle, lost in the fog.

There are so many things she wants to say to him right now, but not a single word sticks.

“I am so done because if _that_ is real life, then what is the point?” Sitting back down opposite her, Cameron allows the boat to continue in its somber glide. “This place gave me the chance to become something I thought I could never be: _happy_.”

“But didn’t I—?”

 _No, of course not_.

Roberta can’t tell if the voice she hears inside her head belongs to her subconscious or to a separate entity entirely, but it’s not wrong.

She’s ten years Cameron’s junior and, on the day they met, she was little more to him than a cheap distraction. The world had become too much to bear alone and she was a safe harbor. With a couple of drinks in him, he opened up to her about all of his worst fears and inhibitions.

She had been a perfect stranger: he intended for her to become little more than a memory that night.

Slowly, the opposite is now becoming true.

The further they sail into the mist, away from the shore and all recognizable landmarks, the more Roberta begins to feel that she’s losing him to the Bliss.

Losing _herself_.

“Cameron, I—”

“Listen…” The boat scrapes noisily along the stony shore. Cameron stands to exit the boat and their eyes meet. He’s seeing clearly now, for maybe the first time in a very long time. “You _have_ made me happy, Roberta. Don’t you see that? That’s why I want you to join me. _This_ is our escape.”

He steps out of the boat as Roberta wallows in her confusion.

 _Temptation_.

“In the end, Roberta, isn’t that the only thing that matters?” His voice echoes all around her as he walks up the shore with a staggered step. “ _Happiness_.”

Roberta climbs out of the boat after him, but her legs wobble and shake beneath her weight. Cameron’s back is already fading into the mist up ahead, too far away for her to give chase in her current state. She makes one, two steps forward before she falls to her knees amid the moon flowers.

Every bit of her conscious mind says fight the Bliss and bring Cameron back—bring Cameron _home_ —from this illusion, but her body refuses to obey. She’s so tired of all the fighting…

 _Don’t trust the Bliss_ , Sheriff Whitehorse’s voice echoes in her head. _You need to get the marshal._

That’s right.

Roberta made a promise to Sheriff Whitehorse—to herself—back at the Hope County Jail that she wasn’t going to let Cameron slip through her fingers again. Not without a proper Hope County fight.

With all of the strength left in her body, she forces herself to her feet and stumbles after him. She makes one, two steps forward and she’s still standing. After three, four, five steps she believes she’s out of the woods. Roberta keeps one foot in front of the other, one step at a time—

 _Leave him alone_ , Faith’s voice warns. _Leave him alone!_

But Roberta refuses to yield, even as she staggers blind into the moon flowers and mist.

She may have been a little bit tipsy on the night she met Cameron Burke, but when she told him she gave a righteous damn about his mental fatigue she wasn’t just blowing smoke up his ass. Even now, being sent by Sheriff Whitehorse to retrieve him wasn’t what put Henbane River at the top of her priority list.

It was the fact that she _cared_ about him. Honest-like. She cares for Cameron in a way that she hasn’t cared about most folks in a long time.

Only once she reaffirms this fact to herself does the fog begin to ebb away.

The field clears before her, revealing that she’s been within arm’s reach of Cameron the entire time. He never really left her, never really allowed himself to stray too far from her side.

Roberta reaches out to grab him, to confirm that he’s still real, and her world fades to black.


End file.
